Breath
by theamityartist
Summary: If Tris wasn't strong enough. If Tris didn't want to go through any more. If Tris understood Al. When Tris commits suicide. When Tobias has to watch it happen.


I run a hand through my hair and let out a deep breath, tugging at the dark strands between my fingertips. That's when I hear a sobbing coming from the bathroom.

A sobbing, a rattling, a shaking.

The first can be distinguished, coming from a girl. The last two, though, are harder to place... it sounds almost plastic-y, powdery.

Without telling them to, my feet take me over to the heavy wooden door to get a better reading on it:

Clinking.

There's clinking;

A high tinkling sound all at once combined with a low almost-rumble.

Splashing, like water.

And then another one of the rattling cries tears through the thick material of the door and suddenly I can place the voice, a voice of someone I know well, want to know better;

"Tris?"

There is no coherent answer to my call, nothing except the horrifying sound of the girl I love crying maddeningly and dangerously and worryingly. I try the knob clumsily but to no avail. It's been locked from the inside.

"Tris, open up."

I raise my voice, put an edge to it that I only use with her in front of the other initiates.

The voice of Four.

The one she hates.

Not the voice of Tobias.

"Tris."

I pound on the door now, getting no response out of the little blonde girl who I can imagine beating herself up at this very second, who I can _hear_ beating herself up.

My heart races in my chest as my mind immediately goes to the worst.

"Tris!"

There's that clinking, splashing, rolling, rattling.

Rattling.

Rattling.

_Rattling, shaking, rattling. _

I slam my fists against the door over and over again, finally linking the sounds to pictures, to memories, to knowledge.

_No_.

No, she can't do this.

She can't do this to me, she can't do this to her.

No.

No, no, _no_.

She needs to stop.

I need to stop her.

Desperately, I throw myself against the thing. My elbows, my knees, my fists, my shoulders, my sides, my back, my feet, my heels, anything that will get the door down.

I can't hear anything else but my flesh colliding painfully with wood, limb after limb, point after point, heartbreak after heartbreak.

_"Beatrice!"_

I scream a terrifying, hoarse, broken scream.

My breath comes in short gasps, nearly hyperventilating as if I were on the edge of the roof of a hundred-story building. My stomach is in my throat. I feel hot all over.

I hear glass shattering, followed by Tris crying out.

"Put it down! _Put it down, Tris, put them down!_ Don't do it, just calm down, I'm here, you can calm down, you can stop now."

I picture her mixing drugs with alcohol and more drugs with more alcohol.

I picture empty beer bottles, just hanging from the limp fingers of her dead hand when it's too late to save her.

I picture her shrieking on the floor.

I picture her tossing back pill after pill, capsule after capsule, box after box after box of any medication she can find.

I picture her broken.

I picture her tears.

I picture her eyes.

I picture her lips.

And then I picture her skin, drained of all color, lifeless.

And I can't let that happen.

I take fast, purposeful steps back before running at the threshold, adrenaline coursing through my veins, in every particle of my being.

_"If you can hear me, Tris, step back!"_

My shoulder collides with the tough material, it shattering and shuddering as it gives way powerfully, audibly. I stumble into the small bathroom, and freeze where I am when I see her; Her eyes are glazed over, rimmed with red, dark circles beneath them that hadn't been there before; Her skin is sallow; Her hair is a mess.

She scares me.

My hand trembles as I reach for one of the now-empty plastic bottles that once held over-the-counter painkillers, the kind everyone has, the kind everyone uses so casually on such a regular basis. I feel bile rise in my throat and I swallow hard, dropping it to the floor as I look at the small girl before me.

I take in a breath, quivering.

And then a moan escapes my lips and I lurch to her, grabbing her arms and turning her to face me, but what meets me is scarier than anything I'd seen before. What I see rivals all the deaths I've witnessed, rivals all the murders and bloody fights, rivals the sickening look in Dauntless eyes that always means "more." What I see is fear. Panic. Distress.

Her gray-blue eyes widen in fear when they fall upon me. Her limbs flop at her sides like she has no control over them anymore. She loses her footing and now I am the only thing supporting her, not her feet, not the floor, not her arms, not the counter: just me. And it takes all I have not to break down right then and there.

So we fear each other now.

She tries to peek around me, to escape my hold, but no matter how hard I want to give her what she wants just so she can be happy, or at least happier, I can't. She would fall. She would die. I can't do it.

It feels like my insides are being ripped in two ever so slowly, ever so torturous when I see that she no longer can move by herself and she doesn't even know it.

She thinks she's fine?

She's not.

She is anything but fine, she is cloudy, she is shabby- this Tris is repulsive and frightening.

And she doesn't recognize me; I can see that in the way she stares at me so blankly and yet so offensively, as if I am about to hurt her. She tentatively eyes the splinters of the door scattered on the floor and I can see the gears working much too hard, much harder than they should for something so simple, as she tries to figure out how and why they are like that.

I sob that matches the ones I'd heard her release, herself, just moments before leaves my lips and I can't do this anymore, I can't take it, I can't handle it.

"Tris. Tris, you can't leave me, do you hear me? You cannot leave me, don't you dare! Whatever happened to you being tough as nails? I expected more of you. Do you think this solves anything? It doesn't. It doesn't solve one miniscule thing! You think you are selfish, you try so hard to be different, but in the end you always end up doing something stupid! This is selfish, Tris, _this is selfish._ Why would you do this to yourself? Why would you do this to me? Why would you do this at all? _Tris, don't you let go._ Just listen to my voice, keep listening to me, hold on. I'm going to get you some help. Tris? _Tris!"_

Her head lolls to one side and I fear I'm too late to save her, to help her, to love her, to make her happy. I gently remove a hand from her arms, taking care to still keep her upright, and take her chin, tipping her face back up to me.

"Tris?"

I merely whisper.

I can no longer speak, I can no longer shout.

Her eyes roll back in her head for a second, before she closes them. When her eyes open again, she is staring at me once more but seems to have trouble focusing in on anything at all, and she seems to be having trouble with the simple task of keeping them open. I jostle her once before hugging her to my chest like I'll never let go.

And maybe I never will.

No.

No, I will never let go of Tris.

I will never let go of the first girl I've ever truly loved, respected, hated, been in awe of. I won't ever let go, not in a million years.

My knees feel weak and unstable.

They collapse.

We fall.

I fall.

She falls.

But I never let her go.

Her hair falls into her face.

I no longer have to support her weight. The floor is there.

She smells like sadness.

And then her mouth just barely opens and between the dry cracks of her bruised lips comes a breath.

Just one breath.

But in that breath I hear sorrow and agony and guilt and regret.

In that breath I hear everything she has ever said to me.

In that breath I hear all our conversations, all our secrets.

In that breath I hear love.

And with that one breath my love dies.


End file.
